How to see the Northern Lights from the UK TONIGHT
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Stargazers are in for a colorful treat tonight as the Northern Lights will be visible across the UK.
Thanks to the arrival of a coronal mass ejection (CME), the spectacular light show could be visible today in the south of England.
This is a sudden release of plasma from the sun’s corona, the outermost part of the atmosphere, which is composed of charged particles.
These particles are guided to Earth by the magnetic field and appear as vibrant colors when they interact with our atmosphere.
According to Met Office data, strong solar winds — streams of charged particles — mean there’s a chance the lights could even be seen from south of Cambridge.
Stargazers are in for a colorful treat tonight as the Northern Lights will be visible across the UK. Pictured: Northern Lights over Stonehenge
According to data from the Met Office, strong solar winds – streams of charged particles – mean there’s a chance the lights could be seen even from south of Cambridge.
Earlier today, a large CME arrived at Earth after leaving the sun on Friday – they usually take about 15 to 18 hours to reach Earth.
Solar winds are likely to continue bombarding the UK tonight, according to the Met Office.
This will see the arrival of small to moderate solar storms, which have the potential to affect satellites and GPS systems in low Earth orbit.
Maps from the Met Office’s Space Weather arm predict activity from tonight 10pm BST to tomorrow morning 1am BST, but colors may still be visible in the north of Scotland into the early hours.
Met Office forecasters said: ‘The aurora is likely to be visible given favorable viewing conditions from central and northern parts of the UK and similar geomagnetic latitudes.
“There is a small chance of seeing auroral displays in the south of the UK.”
As of 10pm BST, the Met Office’s cloud cover map is likely to be an overcast night across most of Wales and southern England.
Over Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle, however, it will be largely clear.
Any clouds over north and south Wales, Birmingham and Nottingham will break up in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The aurora is also likely to be visible in the southern hemisphere, in the very south of South America and perhaps New Zealand’s South Island.
After tonight, the solar winds and storms from the CME will weaken.
While the Northern Lights are often visible from the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, they rarely grace the night sky further south.
The spectacular light show could even be seen in the south of England, thanks to the arrival of a coronal mass ejection (CME) today. Pictured: The Northern Lights on the Scottish coast near Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, with a strong aurora storm, captured on March 23 at 9pm
The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, glow on the horizon at St Mary’s Lighthouse in Whitley Bay on the north east coast. Photo date: Thursday, March 23, 2023
Oxygen gives off green and red light, while nitrogen glows blue and purple, and the lights are more commonly seen in winter when nights are cold, long, and dark.
The energy and small particles of solar activity travel along the magnetic field lines to the poles of the Earth so that they appear strongest there.
But if the activity is really strong, these phenomena can be visible further away.
At the end of last month, a dramatic plasma ejection from the sun made the Northern Lights visible as far south as Wiltshire.
Plus, on the nights of February 26 and 27, two particularly strong CMEs caused stargazers in Cornwall to experience them too.
According to the British Geological Survey, the best way to see the Northern Lights is to find a dark spot away from street lights and ideally a cloudless sky.
Experts say skywatchers should generally look north, though the spectacular sight could be overhead or elsewhere.
In the north, the display is known as the aurora borealis, and in the south it is called the aurora australis.
Cloudy skies at 10pm BST tonight in the UK, which could obscure views of the Northern Lights in Wales and southern England. In the north and east, however, it will be largely clear
The sun goes through an 11-year solar cycle in which the magnetic field becomes more or less active.
This, in turn, causes a fluctuating amount of activity on the sun’s surface.
Surface activity has been increasing since the last solar minimum in 2020, so our star is currently at its most active since 2014.
It is expected to reach solar maximum in 2025, so more of these aurora displays are expected in the coming months and years.
An example of this is the colossal “solar tornado” observed last month, which reached a height 14 times greater than Earth.
Composed of plasma and heat, the twister was more than 74,500 miles high and moved at up to 310,000 miles per hour.
In addition, late last month, a hole 20 times larger than Earth in the sun’s atmosphere was causing solar storms.
Coronal holes – a common phenomenon on the sun – are regions of open magnetic field from which solar wind hurtles into space at high speed.
They were first spotted by NASA’s Skylab in the early 1970s, but scientists are still not entirely sure what causes them.
They can appear at any time during the solar cycle, but they are most common during the descending phase.
This massive hole unleashed 1.8 million miles per hour solar winds toward Earth.
In addition, late last month, a hole 20 times larger than Earth in the sun’s atmosphere (pictured) caused solar storms
SUNSTORMS ARE A CLEAR DANGER TO ASTRONAUTS AND CAN DAMAGE SATELLITES
Solar stormsor solar activity, can be divided into four main components that can have consequences on Earth:
- Solar flares: A large explosion in the atmosphere of the sun. These flares are made from photons coming directly from the flare site. Solar flares only strike Earth when they occur on the side of the Sun that faces Earth.
- Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs): Large clouds of plasma and magnetic field emanating from the sun. These clouds can erupt in any direction and then continue in that direction, plowing through the solar wind. These clouds only cause impacts on the Earth when they are aimed at the Earth.
- Fast solar wind currents: These come from solar coronal holes, which form all over the sun and usually only when closer to the solar equator do the winds affect the Earth.
- Solar energetic particles: High-energy charged particles believed to be released primarily by shocks formed at the leading edge of coronal mass ejections and solar flares. When a CME cloud plows through the solar wind, solar energetic particles can be produced, and because they are charged, they follow the magnetic field lines between the sun and Earth. Only charged particles that follow magnetic field lines that intersect the Earth will have an impact.
While these may seem dangerous, astronauts are not in immediate danger from these phenomena due to the relatively low orbit of manned missions.
However, they should be concerned about the cumulative exposure during spacewalks.
This picture shows the sun’s coronal holes in an x-ray. The outer solar atmosphere, the corona, is structured by strong magnetic fields, which when closed can cause the atmosphere to suddenly and violently release gas bubbles or tongues and magnetic fields called coronal mass ejections
The damage caused by solar storms
Solar flares can damage satellites and have enormous financial costs.
The charged particles could also threaten airlines by disrupting the Earth’s magnetic field.
Very large flares can even cause currents in power grids and shut down the energy supply.
When coronal mass ejections hit Earth, they cause geomagnetic storms and enhanced aurora.
They can interfere with radio waves, GPS coordinates and overload electrical systems.
A large influx of energy can enter high-voltage grids and permanently damage transformers.
This can shut down businesses and homes around the world.